Noon in Chicago, Eight in Paris

Chicago, 1947: on a freezing February night, France's feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir calls up radical resident novelist Nelson Algren, asking him to show her around. After a whirlwind tour of dive bars, cabarets and the police lockup, the pair return to his apartment on Wabansia Avenue. Here, a passion is sparked that will last for the next two decades. Their relationship intensifies during intoxicating months spent together in Paris and Chicago. But in between are long, anguished periods apart filled with competing desires - lovers old and new, writing, politics, gambling - which ultimately expose the fragility of their unconventional 'marriage' and put their devotion to the test. Chicago, 1947: on a freezing February night, France's feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir calls up radical resident novelist Nelson Algren, asking him to show her around. After a whirlwind tour of dive bars, cabarets and the police lockup, the pair return to his apartment on Wabansia Avenue. Here, a passion is sparked that will last for the next two decades. Their relationship intensifies during intoxicating months spent together in Paris and Chicago. But in between are long, anguished periods apart filled with competing desires - lovers old and new, writing, politics, gambling - which ultimately expose the fragility of their unconventional 'marriage' and put their devotion to the test.


About the Author
Douglas Cowie is originally from Chicago and has lived in England and Berlin since 1999. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of Owen Noone and the Marauder and two linked novellas, Sing for Life: Tin Pan Alley and Sing for Life: Away, You Rolling River.